SIGNED:

ACTION ON OTHER BILLS

• The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which will require police to get a court order before they can search messages, photos and other digital data stored on phones or company servers in the nation's most-populous state. Civil-liberties advocates called the new law that takes effect Jan. 1 an important advance and said it highlights the need for similar protections at the national level.

• A measure that compels crisis pregnancy centers that discourage women from getting abortions in California to provide information about abortions and other services. The measure imposes the first such statewide rule, after local communities around the country have tried similar efforts.

• A union-backed bill that responds to recent decisions by some local governments to reveal more details of labor negotiations. SB331 by Democratic state Sen. Tony Mendoza of Artesia applies only to Orange County and a few Los Angeles and Orange County cities that adopted broader disclosure standards. The standards call for disclosing collective bargaining proposals and counter-proposals, among other details.

• Legislation that would have positioned California to be the first state on the U.S. border with Mexico to issue driver's licenses that can be used to prove citizenship when entering the country. The bill would have authorized California's Department of Motor Vehicles to negotiate with the federal government to issue "enhanced" driver's licenses similar to those issued in five U.S. states along the Canadian border.

• A law that would have banned the University of California from outsourcing full-time jobs to companies that do not offer the same wages and benefits as comparable jobs in the university system. SB376 sought to bring wage parity to custodial, clerical, food services and some medical workers. Brown said the effort to boost pay for UC workers is well-intentioned but he can't embrace all its provisions.

• Six bills aimed at diluting the powers of the state's top utility regulator and ensuring the commission's meetings are more open and transparent. Emails made public last year in a lawsuit over the 2010 San Bruno explosion described then-CPUC President Michael Peevey holding private discussions with Pacific Gas & Electric officials on issues affecting the company.

A trio of bills aimed at bringing order and oversight to California’s medical marijuana industry nearly 20 years after the state led the nation in legalizing pot for medical use won Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature, his office said Friday.

Inland Southern California has been a key battleground in the debate over medical marijuana. The city of Riverside took its fight to ban dispensaries all the way to the state Supreme Court, which in 2013 upheld cities’ rights to ban them.

Most Riverside County cities don’t allow medical-marijuana dispensaries, although a handful of Coachella Valley communities do. Earlier this year, a ballot measure that would have permitted dispensaries in Riverside failed.

Also this year, county supervisors passed new rules to crack down on large-scale marijuana farms in unincorporated areas.

Brown’s action establishing the first statewide licensing and operating rules for pot growers, manufacturers of cannabis-infused products and retail weed stores comes as multiple groups try to qualify voter initiatives for next year that would allow adults to use marijuana recreationally.

Even before he approved the package of new rules, initiative sponsors had started rewriting their proposed measures to incorporate many of its elements.

“Today, the Wild West era of medical cannabis came to an end, and a new era of responsible regulation has begun,” said United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council Executive Director Jim Araby, whose union lobbied for employment standards in the bills. “Voters are poised to decide on legalizing recreational cannabis in 2016, so it was vitally important that California establish a regulatory framework first.”

The Democratic governor’s endorsement of the 70-page Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act hammered out by lawmakers in the closing hours of the legislative session was expected because his office crafted many of the exhaustive details. “This new structure will make sure patients have access to medical marijuana, while ensuring a robust tracking system,” Brown said in a signing statement. “This sends a clear signal to our federal counterparts that California is implementing robust controls not only on paper, but in practice.”

The package seeks to manage medical marijuana by requiring individuals or companies engaged in any aspect of the industry to obtain at least one of 17 different licenses. It restricts the number of licenses one company could have.

The legislation includes separate licenses for indoor and outdoor cultivation, transportation, product testing, distribution and dispensaries of different sizes. It also charges various state agencies to develop guidelines for packaging, potency, pesticide use and advertising.

In addition, the bills preserve the right of individuals to grow small amounts of medical marijuana for personal use and enables local governments to ban or tax marijuana-related businesses. Another provision commissions the University of California to study how marijuana affects driving and to recommend appropriate impaired-driver standards.

“This package proves that, for the first time, Californians can work collaboratively to develop and produce comprehensive medical marijuana regulation,” said California Police Chiefs Association President Chief David Bejarano, whose organization opposed previous efforts to regulate medical pot at the state level on the theory that to do so would amount to an endorsement that pot has proven benefits.

The state is expected to start issuing licenses to medical marijuana suppliers and distributors in 2018.

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